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A Sydney technology information designer has come up with a way to explore, search and comment on complicated documents online – and he’s started with the Productivity Commission Report on the Contribution of the Not for Profit sector as a way of giving back to the community.

David Pratten has deigned a user-friendly version of the Productivity Commission’s report which he says is for busy thought leaders who wish to scan this document for relevant content.

His technology means no more post-it notes on hard copy reports or laboriously cutting and pasting through a PDF version.

Pratten’s system allows people to explore the document, to find material that relates to their concerns in a way that a PDF version doesn’t. Access to the document is through a table of contents that reveals related material, and shows search results. He decided that the Productivity Commission’s 500 page report was a good place to try out the technology. It took him almost 20 hours to load the information into his framework.

Every page of material may be separately commented on via Twitter, Facebook and a dozen other social media sites.

Pratten says he has a desire to contribute to the Not for Profit sector in Australia. He approached the Productivity Commission for permission to apply his as yet unnamed information design principles to this report and make it available to the Australian community. The Commission asked that Pratten share his technology with them once the sector has a chance to try it out.

Pratten says he has spent the last 20 years in the Eurasian country of Kazakhstan as a national director of a church service organisation called Youth With A Mission.

In the last three years with the organisation he developed its IT resources. He has only been back in Sydney for a few months.

Given that the sector will soon be grappling with the Henry Taxation Review, the technology couldn’t have come at a better time.
The full PC report is available at: knowledgeferret.com

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